Stories

“My name is Rouguiatou and I come from Guinea. I arrived in Italy in 2015, and in the last three years I lived in Milan and Rome. Loneliness is never easy and I went through a difficult initial period that I have overcome when I started working. Thanks to the center that housed me, I started volunteering in a project to support unaccompanied foreign minors. I left Guinea full of hope: at the time I was studying Medicine and I was determined to finish, dropping my studies was not among my plans, even if was leaving my country for the unknown. So, while working, I started looking for a way to enroll at university and do what I dreamed as a child. I worked six months in a hotel to save enough money for my education, but unfortunately it didn’t end well and I failed the Medicine admission test (at the time my Italian was not that good). I was so discouraged, but still determined to study, that I decided to try with another faculty: Educational Science. Failing the test helped me realizing that I would have always to be prepared for unexpected events. The positive side of this though, was to discover that I liked something I never though about. In brief, I didn’t like Educational Science, I used to study it just because I didn’t want to stay home, but at a point I started liking it. I am the type of person who like to be useful, doing useful things: Medicine would have allowed me to help ill people, Educational Sciences would have given me the opportunity to help someone else. Slowly, also my social life has changed, I started making good friends and I got engaged with an Italian. My boyfriend’s family welcomed me right away. It is so nice the feeling to be loved by all of them, they always make me feel home. Holidays, birthdays, Christmas time, we always celebrate together! Speaking Italian and eating just Italian food, I obviously feel a bit Italian (although I do miss the fonio that my mother cooks!). I don’t plan to come back to Guinea soon, first I would like to finish university and find a job here. That doesn’t mean that I don’t miss my country, my family, my friends, my things. I can overcome all of this just because I have found my place here.”